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Scrub vs Swill - What's the difference?

scrub | swill |

As nouns the difference between scrub and swill

is that scrub is one who labors hard and lives meanly; a mean fellow or scrub can be an instance of scrubbing while swill is a mixture of solid and liquid food scraps fed to pigs etc; especially kitchen waste for this purpose.

As verbs the difference between scrub and swill

is that scrub is to rub hard; to wash with rubbing; usually, to rub with a wet brush, or with something coarse or rough, for the purpose of cleaning or brightening; as, to scrub a floor, a doorplate while swill is to eat or drink greedily or to excess.

As an adjective scrub

is mean; dirty; contemptible; scrubby.

scrub

English

Etymology 1

(en)

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Mean; dirty; contemptible; scrubby.
  • * (rfdate)'' (Walpole)
    • How solitary, how scrub, does this town look!
  • * (rfdate), (Jonathan Swift)
    • No little scrub joint shall come on my board.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • One who labors hard and lives meanly; a mean fellow.
  • * John Bunyan, A Pilgrim's Promise
    • a sorry scrub
  • * Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield
    • We should go there in as proper a manner possible; nor altogether like the scrubs about us.
  • A worn-out brush.
    • (Ainsworth)
  • One who is incompetent or unable to complete easy tasks.
  • A thicket or jungle, often specified by the name of the prevailing plant; as, oak scrub', palmetto ' scrub , etc.
  • * , chapter=1
    • , title= Mr. Pratt's Patients, chapter=1 , passage=I stumbled along through the young pines and huckleberry bushes. Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path that, I cal'lated, might lead to the road I was hunting for. It twisted and turned, and, the first thing I knew, made a sudden bend around a bunch of bayberry scrub and opened out into a big clear space like a lawn.}}
  • (US, stock breeding) One of the common livestock of a region of no particular breed or not of pure breed, especially when inferior in size, etc. Often used to refer to male animals unsuited for breeding.
  • Vegetation of inferior quality, though sometimes thick and impenetrable, growing in poor soil or in sand; also, brush.
  • One not on the first team of players, a substitute.
    • Derived terms
    * scrubbable * scrub game * scrub race
    Derived terms
    * scrub bird * scrub oak * scrub robin

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl)

    Verb

    (scrubb)
  • To rub hard; to wash with rubbing; usually, to rub with a wet brush, or with something coarse or rough, for the purpose of cleaning or brightening; as, to scrub a floor, a doorplate.
  • To rub anything hard, especially with a wet brush; to scour;
  • (figuratively) To be diligent and penurious; as, to scrub hard for a living.
  • To call off a scheduled event; to cancel.
    • Engineers had to scrub the satellite launch due to bad weather.
  • (databases) To eliminate or to correct data from a set of records to bring it inline with other similar datasets
    • The street segment data from the National Post Office will need to be scrubbed before it can be integrated into our system.
  • (audio) To move a recording tape back and forth with a scrubbing-like motion to produce a scratching sound, or to do so by a similar use of a control on an editing system.
  • (audio, video) To maneuver the play position on a media editing system by using a scroll bar.

    • Noun

    (en noun)
  • An instance of scrubbing.
  • A cancellation.
  • A worn-out brush.
  • One who scrubs.
  • (medicine, in the plural) Clothing worn while performing surgery.
  • An exfoliant for the body.

    • Anagrams

    *

    swill

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • a mixture of solid and liquid food scraps fed to pigs etc; especially kitchen waste for this purpose
  • any disgusting or distasteful liquid
    • I cannot believe anyone could drink this swill .
  • anything disgusting or worthless
    • This new TV show is a worthless load of swill .
  • a large quantity of liquid drunk at one swallow
    • He took a swill of his drink and tried to think of words.
  • (Ultimate Frisbee) A badly-thrown pass
  • Inexpensive beer

    • Verb

    (en verb)
  • to eat or drink greedily or to excess
  • * Smollett
    • Well-dressed people, of both sexes, devouring sliced beef, and swilling pork, and punch, and cider.
  • *1913 ,
  • *:If you can give me no more than twenty-five shillings, I'm sure I'm not going to buy you pork-pie to stuff, after you've swilled a bellyful of beer.
  • to wash something by flooding with water
  • * Shakespeare
    • As fearfully as doth a galled rock / O'erhang and jutty his confounded base, / Swilled with the wild and wasteful ocean.
  • to inebriate; to fill with drink.
  • * Milton
    • I should be loth / To meet the rudeness and swilled insolence / Of such late wassailers.
  • to feed pigs swill
  • * 1921 , (Nephi Anderson), Dorian Chapter 8
  • *:"Carlia, have you swilled the pigs?"

    • Anagrams

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